No Simple Answer

It seems that every group with a stake in education is offering a
quick-fix solution to the problems facing public
schools.

H.L. Mencken once quipped that "for every complex problem, there is a
solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." He might have been talking
about school reform in 2000.

It seems that every group with a stake in education is offering a
quick-fix solution to the problems facing public schools. Teachers
promise salvation through higher pay, conservatives through the
marketplace. Parents want more parental control, chambers of commerce
more accountability. Still others put their faith in higher standards,
more standardized tests, charter schools, voucher programs, smaller
classes, school-based management, a ban on social promotion, mandated
phonics—you name it.

In Houston, we have heard all of these proposals, and we have
embraced quite a few of them. But we have resisted the temptation to
think that any one of them is powerful enough to bring about the
changes needed to equip today's students—all of them—with
the knowledge and skills they need to function in today's society.

To use a most uncatchy term, we have taken a holistic
approach to school improvement, and it appears to be paying off.
Between 1994 and 1999, the proportion of students in the Houston
Independent School District passing the Texas Assessment of Academic
Skills rose from 44 percent to 64 percent, the dropout rate declined
from 6.3 percent to 2.8 percent, and performance gaps between minority
and nonminority students narrowed considerably. All of this occurred as
the proportion of low-income students in the district was rising.

We started by recognizing that no school system can be better than
its governing body. We went to Houston's leaders—business,
religious, civic, and others—and got them to identify and then
back the campaigns of people who would work passionately and skillfully
for a world-class education for our children. Houston now has a
first-rate board of education whose members do not shy away from hard
decisions.

Some of the courageous decisions they have made involved recognizing
our limitations. The school district runs the city's largest
transportation system, but none of us professional educators knows much
about how to keep buses running. Nor do schools of education offer
courses in food service, building maintenance, and waste disposal. So
we hired people who understand these industries, paid competitive
wages, and authorized them to draw up contracts with the best firms
they could find. That allowed us to concentrate on what we could do
best: educate children.

The real work of
a school system is what happens in classrooms and
schools.

We understand that the real work of a school system is what happens in
classrooms and schools. So we decentralized management and made the
individual school the basic unit of accountability and improvement.
Principals were authorized to make their own decisions about hiring,
teaching methodologies, and whether to engage "Big Bug" pest control.
The only condition was that they and their staffs had to work in
teams.

In another outside-the-box move, district superintendents,
principals, and others with management responsibility were put on
private-sector-style contracts under which their jobs became dependent
on performance, not guaranteed tenure. A management-training program
was initiated to help them operate in the new climate.

In keeping with the spirit of decentralization, the Houston school
system introduced parental choice, and we have encouraged the creation
of 20 charter schools that enjoy even greater operational autonomy on
the condition that they meet certain learning goals. Charter schools
are often portrayed as a radical new invention. In fact, they represent
the original premise of public education in this country, harkening
back to a time when every town had its own school with its own rules
and procedures. We simply reinforced the idea that charter schools,
like teachers and school administrators, need the active support of a
responsive system.

To be successful, schools must focus on instruction, and everyone
involved—students, teachers, administrators, and
parents—must understand what the teaching and learning objectives
are for each subject and grade. We accomplished this through Project
Clear, which defines the common core of academic subjects against which
every student's progress is measured. We were careful to make sure that
there was close alignment between state and local objectives,
textbooks, and tests.

Recognizing that educational costs vary from student to student, we
established a Targeted School Fund that gives more per-pupil funds to
students with greater needs. We also launched a major effort to
generate community input into the budget process—an effort
grounded in the conviction that every member of the public is our
"customer," including people with no children in school and parents who
send their children elsewhere or teach them at home. Because the public
now has a better understanding of what we are doing and how we do it,
the board was recently able to adopt a budget that requires a 6 percent
tax increase.

We made it clear that we do not accept full responsibility for the
education of every student.

Finally, we made it clear that we do not accept full responsibility for
the education of every student. Students have responsibilities as well.
We cut out social promotion and set up a system whereby students must
take more academic courses and meet standards for grades and test
scores. Those who fail to do so, even after attending summer school,
must repeat grades and receive special interventions.

The same progress is required of all students. Nearly three-
quarters of Houston's students are disadvantaged, but the factors that
make them disadvantaged have nothing to do with ability to learn. They
may need help, but they can learn. The untapped power of student effort
is a major missing link in the school reform movement.

We will be taking additional steps in the future. We need to make
better use of the news media, and changing family structures mean that
we must develop new paradigms of family-school relationships. We
believe that public funds should go to students, not institutions, and
there may be a time when vouchers will be part of the mix.

Houston is no utopia, but we have made considerable progress because
we resisted the temptation to put our faith in any single gimmick or
formula for school improvement. School systems are complex—and
looking for a simple solution is, well, simple-minded.

Rod Paige, the superintendent of the Houston Independent School
District since 1994 and a member of the district's board of education
from 1989 to 1994, was recently awarded the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize
in Education for 2000.

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